


in flashbacks and echoes

by Edgedancer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Gender Neutral Pronouns for the Red Lion, Kinda?, of the red lion so it's a bit odd, ten thousand years is a long time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-09 10:57:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15266004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edgedancer/pseuds/Edgedancer
Summary: How resilient they are, these fragile, wondrous things. Red loves them instinctively, passionately, in a way machine was never meant to, but ey is much more than a simple machine.





	in flashbacks and echoes

In the first century after the fall of Altea, there are no less than three attempts to reunite Voltron.

 

None are successful, of course. The Castle of Lions is gone. In two of the three attempts, no lions are even found. Alfor may have failed to protect the universe, failed to stop Zarkon, failed to live, but in this one endeavor he has seemingly succeeded.

 

Succeeded until a grizzled Galra soldier from before the betrayal, old but still spitting fire at the one who has turned the name of his race into the dirtiest insult in the universe, stumbles on Red where ey lies waiting in the bowels of a dormant volcano. Red gladly lowers eir particle barrier before he can even knock, secure in the certainty that ey will not be betrayed as Black was. Ey's the first of the four to do so, and so each paladin receives a vision of Voltron. They are spread far and wide, as are the lions, and they all wake at eir call.

 

Ey's not Blue, has never been tied to the Castle so securely that ey can open a wormhole to it. Still, Red is and always will be the fastest craft in the universe. The two of them set out to retrieve the new paladins.

 

By the next morning, the water paladin is dead. Red feels him wink out like a candle and Blue's grief is like a wave. Their little ones have always come and gone quickly, but none of the lions have been able to harden their hearts to it. Red tells eir paladin, and feels the soldier's hope flicker, then firm again. How resilient they are, these fragile, wondrous things. Red loves them instinctively, passionately, in a way machine was never meant to, but ey is much more than a simple machine.

 

In two months, sky and earth are gone as well. Red cannot fathom it, doesn't understand how the betrayer has found them. When they reach the forest paladin, it is a relief beyond anything ey has ever felt. But two paladins and one lion can do little, and they have a galaxy to cross before they can meet Green.

 

The betrayer confronts them halfway there with a smirk and the terrible bayard that belongs more to a woman six days dead at his hand than he, but which grows and cuts and shields him all the same. Red's pilot is fierce and strong and wild and wonderful, but he is new to the controls, weaponless except for Red's light-filled roar and sharp claws. He tries and Red tries, but in the end they are separated and it's only the forest one's clever sacrifice that lets em put eir barrier back up in time.

 

Ey watches as eir beloved paladin is cut down and does nothing, can do nothing.

 

Red floats in space there for another century, constantly guarded by a rotating fleet of ships, until the betrayer returns with a purple beam that pulls em, barrier and all, into one of the strange fireless vessels.

 

Red misses eir paladin and eir family, who have slipped back into their slumber. Finally, ey succumbs as well, leaving just enough consciousness to maintain the shield until a new paladin arrives.

 

Ey doesn't dream so much as remember, all eir bright paladins, happy and shining and alive in eir mind though not in the universe.

 

Red wakes, later, to the feel of a new mind compatible with eir own. Ey realizes with shock that thirty centuries have passed, gleans from eir new paladin that the betrayer has taken countless galaxies and imprisoned their people. The newest fire paladin has never known true freedom, but she feels it in the anger that her Galra masters can never quite beat out of her. Red calls her from her prison on the ship, and when she comes Red's hope fills her and her fellow paladins with the sight of salvation. From far away, Red can feel eir siblings stir in interest, all but the eldest Black who, shielded by their castle mother from the betrayer's influence, hears nothing.

 

But before ey can open eir mouth to bring eir paladin home, the doors are thrown open and lasers flash and she is gone.

 

A year later the betrayer comes in to gloat, to tell em that they found the other four who had Voltron's vision and destroyed them.

 

Red does nothing, can do nothing. Eir hope was their death sentence, eir call their execution.

 

Thrice more a beautiful soul is called and comes and dies, and Red grieves them each time, but nothing ey tries can change this cycle. The last time they make it almost to Blue and ey almost wishes that eir sibling would be found instead so that another would bear this terrible burden, because Voltron means grief now, and Red is so, so tired.

 

Fifty-six centuries after Alfor promised that they would be safe and sealed the door of eir short-lived sanctuary, Red does something impulsive.

 

As Red has come to expect, eir paladin is on the slave decks. A young boy who has never heard the name of Voltron, never touched a sword, faces his first round in the gladiator ring and is miraculously victorious.

 

Red doesn't call, doesn't send visions of a blazing sword and a destined family. Instead, ey watches. Ey watches as eir boy learns the sword in the heat of battle, ey watches as he sends the innocent to easier jobs with injuries and the killers to their victims. Ey watches as, a man now, he and his lover fight their way to a cruiser.

 

The betrayer's lieutenant lets them go; the empire loses thousands of slaves and tens of ships a week– it is nothing to them.

 

Red cannot watch from so far, but ey feels eir pilot's happiness like warm sun on eir back.

 

He goes out three years later.

 

Red does nothing, can do nothing, didn't even try– and it is the longest one of eir little ones has lasted since the betrayal.

 

So Red does nothing but send eir strength and eir love. And love them ey does, though they'll never know it. Ey has always lived in quiet wonder of eir paladins but it is something else altogether to watch them find their way in this hostile world with nothing but their instincts and the strength of their conviction, unconcerned, unstoppable, unbeaten. Red does not, cannot help them, but they can help themselves.

 

Perhaps Voltron is not what this new world needs. Perhaps Red has finally been made superfluous, merely an indicator for the little ones who will effect true change. Red doesn't feel disappointed; ey is still tired, still grieving, still betrayed, and perhaps it is alright if ey sleeps, if ey retreats and leaves to them the love and the daring, for a time.

 

Red's dreams are different, now. Ey sees eir present paladins, feels them flying together with em and eir siblings through tongues of flame or fleets of ships or simply the skies of beloved Altea. Ey dreams of Voltron, of defending eir castle-mother together with eir siblings. Red dreams ey is one of the small cousins from Blue's sanctuary, running free and fierce in the hot sun. Red dreams new paladins, new sparks bursting to bright flame and simmering to glowing embers.

 

Red dreams eir paladin has been looking for em, and finds em, and knows em by sight, and loves em the way ey loves him already. He fights for Red the way ey would for him, if ey didn't feel the pain of having led those before him to their deaths.

 

He falls, as they all do, and Red wakes shocked.

 

Red's paladin is falling, and beautiful, and he has fought for em and set em free and he wants Red.

 

And Red doesn't do nothing--  _can't_ do nothing, not when eir paladin finally needs em.


End file.
